09-Dec-2008 -- The first 100 kilometres driving from the confluence 21N 54E went smoothly. We drove from one sabkha to another through flat sand dune banks and just around the big elevations. The actual plan was to go east of the beeline and use the flat beds for a fast move towards the target.

However, we once again found some bulldozer tracks leading more or less straight ahead - towards our Confluence. The invitation was too tempting and I could not refuse it.

As with life it is always more interesting when you stray away from the common path. We found ourselves facing incredible views and breath taking routes in the mountains of sand. It certainly kept us on a high adrenalin rush. But as all good things must come to an end, our luck ran out after about 60 km of driving. Evidently, it was simply not possible for the huge caterpillars to scale one particular dune. Therefore the tracks of the heavy machines turned around about 20 km before we reached our target. As we were making our way through these track, we had to turn where they did!

As a result of this inevitable 45 km, the other team had once again beat us to the Confluence. And so the race was over. Yet, all though they did get there first, we were all in agreement that the adventure was worth the pain and effort. And so, we do not feel as though we lost. We are just the second winner.

The way back was quite troublesome. There mere fact was that we are not employed at Aramco, the Saudi-American oil company. Therefore, it was imperative that we avoid contact with the security guards under any circumstances. For this reason we could not use the easy paths to Šayba and had to go cross country through the sand again.

The calculation of the over all distance resulted in 1067 km of off-road driving on sand and sabkha. Two of our vehicles have used 400 litres of gasoline each whereas the third only needed 320 litres.